Chapter 25: Stoops to Folly

“To plainness honour’s bound
When majesty stoops to folly.”

- Earl of Kent, King Lear, Act I, Scene I

Today was April Fool’s Day. It was also Colonel Robert Palmer’s birthday, a coincidence that Whitefeather, Hopson and the two Tuull freighters thought amusingly appropriate.

Lieutenant Boland came into the wardroom and slumped down on the desk opposite to Lieutenant Whitefeather’s. He looked thoroughly discouraged as he threw his green kepi on his desk in disgust.

“And what does our Fearless Leader want this time?” Whitefeather enquired gently.

“A golf course. For his birthday.”

Whitefeather blinked. This was indeed unanticipated. “A golf course?”

Boland nodded as he stared at the desktop in front of him.

“A regulation golf course. Par seven, whatever the hell that is. And he wants to put the bloody thing right smack dab in the middle of the planned minefield in front of 3rd Company’s trenches.”

“That should make those line drives exciting,” Whitefeather offered. “If he sets off a land mine, it could count as a penalty stroke.”

“I almost HAD a stroke when he added it to the list,” Boland complained.

There was a throat-clearing sound as T’klikrooz broke into the conversation. “If I may be excused for interrupting, gentlebeings, I believe I have a potential solution to Lieutenant Kirk Boland’s latest assignment in English folly architecture.”

Boland perked up at that. “I’m all ears, Rosencrantz.”

“Lieutenant William Whitefeather has requested a new firing range several kilometres away from the colony specifically for training with the RLA-20 automatic laser rifle. This firing range is tentatively called ‘Range Les Hauteurs d’Ancre’. It is far enough removed from the colony to permit construction behind the firing point as a golf course, based on the Satsuki golf course in Sano, Japan, which happens to be a Par 7 course. If we utilize the planned pod as both range bunker and the course club house, we can minimize the additional work involved in fulfilling Colonel Palmer’s desire to play golf. At the same time, we are not disrupting the protective pattern of the minefield.”

“That’s about a hundred kilometres away,” Boland observed. “That’s not exactly close.”

“Lieutenant Kirk Boland, transportation is planned to be effected by transporter nexus,” T’klikrooz reminded him. “That proposed location is comfortably within transporter range.”

“Ah,” Boland nodded, blushing. “I keep forgetting about that. Handy isn’t it?”

Whitefeather nodded, smiling.

Boland thought for a moment. “My company’s rifle range is Range Mont-Sorrel, and the grenade range is Range Flers-Courcelette. Is there any significance in those names? You’ve never said.”

“Oh, they’re all Van Doos battle honours,” Whitefeather explained.

“Ah,” Boland winced. “Right.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” William apologized politely as he picked up his swagger stick and green wedge cap, “I have a formal inspection to conduct.”

Senior Cadet Leader Callie Whitefeather took her duties as Commandant of the Corps of Cadets seriously. She and the two other concubines she’d managed to dragoon as “Cadet Leaders” wore concubine-grey coveralls with epaulets about the size used by Royal Air Force officers: four stripes for her, three for each of the other two concubines. Her intent was to reserve one and two stripes for thirteen-year-old dependants who showed promise as future leaders. Her hat was the standard Confederacy kepi in concubine grey. For footwear, she opted for Marine standard pattern boots.

She’d chosen the coveralls for two reasons: the similarity between the uniforms would give them a sense of solidarity, and the coveralls would accommodate the three concubines’ pregnancies.

For Callie and her fellow Whitefeather and Hopson concubines were all now pregnant. That medical check up to T’kliktguul hadn’t been as routine as their two sponsors had pretended – it had been both to confirm that they were all now expecting, and to ensure that the foetuses were all healthy. That night had been quite passionate for the Whitefeather clan as the five of them celebrated their gift to each other – a gift of hope that there would be a next generation, of hope that maybe that generation would grow up in a universe of peace.

The cadets were similarly dressed in one-piece coveralls with boots and kepis, except their coveralls and headgear were Marine green. Between the five companies of the 3rd “Brigade” she’d managed to get 48 kids. She’d split them into two platoons, with one of her two fellow Cadet Leader concubines in charge of each. For a rank structure, Callie planned on copying the standard Marine rank structure up to Lieutenant – if she ever got any of them to that stage. At the moment the Corps had only two kids above the rank of private: the corporals leading the two platoons.

Whitefeather emerged from the primary tunnel that connected this dome to the still-under-construction second dome, wearing his full-dress Marine uniform. With his carefully shined Sam Browne belt and boots, he cut an impressive figure. The concubine mothers of many of these 48 cadets were present, sitting or standing in little knots at the edge of the parade square. Several drooled appreciatively as the proud Marine officer marched onto the youthful parade.

“Parade! AH-ten-SHUN!” Callie called, and 48 left legs lifted until their thighs were parallel to the ground. With a single slam, 48 pairs of boot heels came together as one.

“Shouldeeeer – ARMS!” With a carefully timed ONE-two-three-ONE, 48 LRI-1 laser rifles were drawn up to the shoulder and the left hands returned to the seam of their coveralls.

“Preseeeent – ARMS!” Another ONE-two-three-ONE brought the laser rifles before the 48 cadets, barrels stiffly pointed upward at 90 degrees, with 48 right feet tucked behind the heel of the left.

Callie turned around and saluted the form of her lover and master – and superior officer. “Atalanta’at Corps of Cadets ready for inspection, SIR!”

As the two Whitefeathers gravely inspected the 48 eight- to twelve-year-olds, not just mothers were watching. Four privates from Lieutenant Christopher Janke’s 2nd Company were also lounging at the side of the parade square, snickering. To them, the little kids looked like an army of toy soldiers arrayed in ranks on a living room carpet.

At the end of the inspection, Lieutenant Whitefeather marched off the parade square. As the recruit cadets marched off to the main transporter room, he paused briefly, his face growing a far-away look that the men really should have recognized as the sign of someone communicating subvocally. He then resumed his march – right past the four lounging infantrymen.

They leaped to their feet as he approached and gave him a thoroughly exaggerated salute right out of a vaudeville comedy routine. Whitefeather came to a halt and crisply saluted back.

“And you are?” he demanded of the four men, as if the AI hadn’t already advised him.

That was the last piece of information that the four wanted this stuffed shirt to know. One temporized with, “Ah, No Class, No Taste, No Shirt, and Shit Faced.” He then belatedly added, “Sir!”

Whitefeather hid his amusement. “Well, Private Shit Faced,” he responded, “Leftenant Janke is screaming for you. You’d better report to him right fucking now if you don’t want today to be your last day.”

“Sir,” the now-sweating man responded, only this time with a much more military salute. It was still not to the standards William Whitefeather demanded of the troops under his command, but for the moment it would do.

“Carry on,” Whitefeather ordered as he returned the gesture. “Be sure to get your nickel back.”

The four departed post-haste. Whitefeather could only look at them sadly. The other companies were far more ready for combat than these men. He knew that in terms of quality, No Class, No Taste, No Shirt, and Shit Faced were potentially as good as any other Marine throughout the 3rd Brigade – and yet they well represented the abysmal level of training and discipline of the rest of their company. He itched to get cracking on a proper training regime on these men.

It was a pity, he reflected sadly, that they had such a fool of a lieutenant commanding them, backed up by a fool of a brigade commander and an utter cipher of a sergeant. He cocked his head as the thought entered it. Just who the hell was the 2nd Company’s sergeant?

Sergeant Gregory McKell was a very frustrated man – or rather, boy. Last summer he’d been a 15-year-old member of the JROTC unit at the same Andrew Ryan McGill High School in St. Paul, Minnesota that his boss Lieutenant Christopher Janke attended. They and their teacher Mr. Palmer had been extracted at the same football game. Unlike the star football hero, McKell had been the class geek, into chess and computers and the Physics Club. He’d gotten into karate in elementary school, partially to get into some semblance of shape other than pear, and partially to develop the skills needed to keep the bullies off his back. It wasn’t until a couple of years later, in Grade Six, that he’d also hoped to gather the attention of the girls.

He’d joined the JROTC for the same altruistic reasons of gathering skills to keep the bullies at bay and attract some feminine attention. It hadn’t been terribly successful until after the President’s speech, when his CAP score of 6.8 actually started to mean something. He’d been on the first of his rare dates when the Marines showed up and offered him a life outside of the confines of Minnesota. He’d taken his date with him, and her widowed mother. The last word he’d heard from his parents was that they too had both been extracted, and were busy at Mars Fabrication Centre River Rouge, building starships as fast as crews could be assembled to man them.